Collie Speciality Show in Helsinki, Finland

This weekend we spend in Finland. I am very satisfied with it, cause it gave an opportunity to have a vacation and in the same time also participate in a dog show with Aapo.

Our trip started early saturday morning and ended late on sunday. Saturday we traveled and saw a bit Finland. I hadn't been in Finland such a long time. But still I can't end to discover how beautiful and peaceful country it is. Well we also saw some farms and Aapo had an opportunity to meet first time in his life a cow - ou boy was he happy and curious to see that animal. Saturday afternoon and night we spended in Toijala. There Aapo saw a horse, whom he surely needed to show how loud he can be. I think he tried to say that eventhough he is smaller he has a bigger voice ;) but the horse wasn't bothered of that and it just continued its way with its master. The place were we stayd was really beautiful - the nature, pure air and bird singing - very peaceful place. There we had an opportunity to play some frisbee and just relax. Also I had the chance to buy a years load of the finnish best - liquorice - that I soo like mmm.

On sunday our journey continued and we drove back Helsinki, were the Collie Speciality dog show was held. There was all together 113 collie smooths entered and what broke the record. The judge was Gwen Beaden from Great Britain. We participated in youth class and in our class there were 9 male dogs. The judge was thorough and took her time. Only 2 dogs in youth class got excellent, others got very good or even good. Aapo was one of the 2 and he got 2nd place in the class. Jei :)!


The characterization: 21 months old sable male. Good size. Good lenght of head with flat skull. Correct legs size, shape and placement. Well used ears. Good reach of neck. Straight front. Moves with drive. Very impressive in profile movement. Sometimes a little low in elbow. Good depth of chest. For ideal I'd like more length of rib. Well handled and presented.

In the final, where the best male was chosen, he got 6th place out of males and also got Reserv Sert :) Aapo's father Rico was best male 2! It seemed that the judge favoured more tri-colour dogs. The BOB was Rico's tri-colour brother.

Aapo's sister Milli did also very good and she was 2nd in her class :)

At the end of the day Soile gave us un opportunity to participate in also the offspring competition. In Rico's offspring there were Rico, Milli, Aapo, Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton. Rico's offspring got 3rd place out of 8 group. Very good results I think!

All results you will find here

That day the weather was sunny, but also a bit windy. Happily it started raining after the show, so that we all got home dry. We had very positive emotions of the show. We saw so many smoothies and I have to admit they are really different in appearence. We saw Aapos half brother Viggo and half sisters Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton. They all are so gorgeus and very potential dogs with good genes I think :)

The dogshow also gave us an opportunity to compare the level. Usually in Estonia there ain't many smoothies participating in dog shows. So that show gave us a really good overview and I think that Aapo is pretty handsom guy hehee ;) and I think his best times are still ahead. I think he can develope even more better than he is now, especially now when I have even more time to train and spend time with him :)

Minna Saarinen pictures here, Jorma Lahti pictures here.